Pakistan Information & News

 Olympics Star Sushil Kumar brought smiles on the faces of millions of Indians across the globe by giving the country its second medal of the Beijing Olympics after Abhinav Bindra brought home the Gold earlier. Indian grappler Sushil, bagged a bronze in wrestlings 66 kg freestyle event exactly 56 years after KD Jadhav brought glory at Helsinki in 1952 and Indian grappler Sushil Kumar won the 1^st repachage round against American Doug Schwab and pinned down Belarussian Albert Batyrov in the second.The glorious moment came after Sushil outclassed Kazakh grappler Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakastan 2-1, 0-1, 1-0 to win an Olympic Bronze medal.

Sushil won two repechage rounds after he had lost his first grapple in the morning to a far superior Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik 3-8 & what makes the achievement even more significant is that Sushil fought and won all three of his bouts in less than one hour after the energy sapping hour Sushil has time to reflect on his achievement. I will continue to win medals for India.

All the fights were tiring and nerve wrecking said Sushil and the question is that what is a Repachage wrestlers who only lose against the two finalists make up a repachage. The repachage matches begin with wrestlers who lost in the 1^st round including the matches to obtain the ideal # against one of the 2 finalists up to the losers in the semi-finals by direct elimination. Winners of the 2-repachage matches each receive a bronze medal and Sushils campaign seemed nearly over when he lost his first round battle against eventual silver medallist Andriy Stadnik but repachage provided him a ray of hope and the Indian proved simply irresistible as he beat three grapplers on the trot to win the bronze and down in the dumps after his opening round defeat Sushil came up with an incredible show beating Doug Schwab USA Albert Batyrov Belarus and finally the losing semifinalist Leonid Spiridonov Kazakhstan in the repachage rounds to earn his slice of history. Sushil thus became the second Indian wrestler after K D Jadhav who won a bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Games to win an Olympic medal. Incidentally in the 2006 Doha Asian Games also Sushil had beaten Leonid to win the bronze against Leonid Sushil grabbed early initiative by scoring two technical points that proved decisive in the end though the Kazakh grappler scored one in the second period and managed to thwart Sushil the Indian proved his superiority again in the third period and eventually prevailed 3-2 to trigger frenzied celebration among the Indians present at the Chinese Agricultural University here.

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 Umpteen Davids have slain many a Goliath in the world of boxing and Akhil Kumar standing on the threshold of history does not want to step on a banana skin and miss out on his first Olympic medal on Monday for someone who has beaten the world champion in his previous round today’s quarter-final bout against the relatively unheralded Veaceslav Gojan of Moldova should ideally be a cakewalk.

Akhil however refuses to lower his guard and says underestimating opponents can often be fatal you never underestimate an opponent much like you never get overawed by his reputation the bantam weight 54kg boxer who is just one win away from an Olympic medal said. A number of great players have bitten the dust just because they took it for granted. The Russian world champion Sergey Vodopyanov made the same mistake and underestimated me. See who reached the quarter finals. It is a cardinal sin in any other sport and I am not going to step into the ring thinking he would serve it on a platter the Haryana boxer said even before he boarded the flight to Beijing Akhil has been insisting that he would not settle for anything less than gold. Asked if that was arrogance Akhil said he is aware of the fine line that separates confidence from complacency. I am not complacent at all. I’m just confident, confident of my ability. I want to be the 1^st Indian boxer to have an Olympic medal dangling from his neck and that just cannot happen if I am not confident enough. Tomorrow is my medal bout, it’s too big an occasion to get complacent and I am confident because I know I’m not complacent Akhil said and the 27 year old has not faced Gojan before but the boxer says he has seen enough recordings of the Moldovan. I am thankful to Doordarshan , they provided me some of those recordings. I am consulting my coaches and formulating a strategy. All I can say is that I would not turn up under-prepared tomorrow he asserted though overwhelmed by the deluge of wishes flowing from all quarters Akhil is hurt by the way boxers are treated back home and he pleaded all to provide financial security to pugilists.

I am not sure if I would be read and listened to if something untoward happens in tomorrow’s bout but I know people would listen to me today. So I don’t want to take a chance and urge all to provide security to the boxers. I work with the Railways but if I buy a pair of boxing shoes I have to worry how to meet my monthly expenditure. Promised promotions never actually materialise and it is worse with other boxers said Akhil sounding bitter. I don’t aspire for private jets or trendy cars. I just want decent jobs for boxers and some financial security for them.

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 World No 1 Spanish Rafael Nadal clinched gold medal in the mens single tennis competition of Beijing Olympics beating Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 6-3, 7-6, 3 here on Sunday and Nadal who has had an out standing year so far winning both French Open and Wimbledon displayed attacking tennis from the word go against an opponent who has produced some remarkable tennis in the last one week at Beijing.

Throughout the match Nadal was at his best executing perfect forehands and backhands with elan. Though world no 12 Gonzalez came up with some great shots in patches it was not enough to beat a man who humbled world no 1 Roger Federer in Wimbledon a month back to herald his march to greatness. In the 1^st set Nadal broke Gonzalez twice, thus paving the way for a cakewalk. But in the second set Gonzalez fought back well to take the set to the tiebreak where Nadal produced some stunning backhands to take home the second set and the loss of the second set, might have devasted the morale of Gonzalez and lost the decider 6-3.

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His Olympics looking lost, Michael Phelps decided to flap those gangly arms one more time. Milorad Cavic, inches from spoiling it all, glided along just under the surface, convinced he had won gold. But it didn’t matter who was fastest. Just first.

Phelps swam into history with a magnificent finish Saturday, tying Mark Spitz with his seventh gold medal by the narrowest of margins in the 100-meter butterfly.

One-hundredth of a second, the time it takes lightning to strike the ground.

Whew!

“Dream as big as you can dream and anything is possible,” Phelps said. “I am sort of in a dream world. Sometimes I have to pinch

myself to make sure it is real.”

Call it the Great Haul of China — and it’s not done yet. Phelps has one more race on Sunday, which will likely complete his coronation as the greatest Olympian ever.

Spitz already ceded the title.

“It goes to show you that not only is this guy the greatest swimmer of all time and the greatest Olympian of all time, he’s maybe the greatest athlete of all time,” said the icon of the 1972 Munich Games. “He’s the greatest racer who ever walked the planet.”

The finish was so close the Serbian delegation filed a protest and swimming’s governing body had to review the tape down to the 10-thousandth of a second.

Phelps thought he lost — until he saw the “1″ beside his name on the scoreboard.

“When I did chop the last stroke, I thought that had cost me the race,” he said. “But it was actually the opposite. If I had glided, I would have been way too long. I took short, faster strokes to try to get my hand on the wall. I ended up making the right decision.”

Phelps’ time was 50.58 seconds, the only time in these Olympics that he won an event without breaking the world record.

Not to worry. The 23-year-old from Baltimore has now pulled even with the greatest of Olympic records.

“One word: epic,” Spitz told The Associated Press from Detroit. “I’m so proud of what he’s been able to do. I did what I did and it was in my day in those set of circumstances. For 36 years it stood as a benchmark. I’m just pleased that somebody was inspired by what I had done. He’s entitled to every second of what’s occurring to him now.

“I feel a tremendous load off my back.”

Phelps will return on Sunday to swim in his final event of these games, taking the butterfly leg of the 400 medley relay. The Americans will be heavily favored to give him his eighth gold, leaving Spitz behind.

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